


Ninety Seconds for a Brighter Future

by ivyfic



Category: Andromeda (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 05:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2800643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyfic/pseuds/ivyfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This will be the worst ninety seconds of your life, but only ninety seconds for a brighter future, hm?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ninety Seconds for a Brighter Future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [colls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/colls/gifts).



They gave him a sedative while he was waiting. It calmed the normally frantic whir of his thoughts. He felt placid and just slightly wrong, and kept poking at the sluggishness of his thoughts like he would poke at a numbed tooth.

He’d found the shop through word of mouth—a friend of a friend of a friend knew someone who knew someone who would install dataports for a fraction of the normal cost. And a dataport was his ticket off this backwater drift. No captain in their right mind would take on a mechanic refugee from Earth—not with his immune system. But a mechanic with a dataport? That was another matter.

Harper was sitting in the waiting room of a holographic tattoo parlor, between two meatheads thumbing through datapads of designs. He’d been anxious before the sedative, he remembered. But now he felt like an egg tucked between two roosters, safe in a nest. He pulled his legs up on the chair and giggled. The roosters wouldn’t mind.

A man came to get him—had he seen him before? Yes, yes, this was the one who’d given him the shot.

“Are you ready, Mr.”—he glanced at a datapad—“Slater?”

Harper giggled again. Did eggs giggle? He leaned towards the man and stage whispered, “That’s not my real name.”

The man’s mouth twitched into a tight smile. “Yes, I’d say you’re ready. Come with me.”

Harper followed him past the chairs and buzzing machines, floating shapes taking form above the bodies of customers. They passed through a heavy metal door into a backroom.

It was bigger than Harper expected, and colder. A warehouse, full of crates and metal pillars. Weaving through them, the man pointed him towards a padded bench. “Please lie down, Mr. Slater.”

In the dim light, the bed looked like a weight bench, like he was about to start bench pressing with his chicken arms. But the color was off. Rust. But only down the middle, soaked into the padding in the shape of a body. This was wrong. Was it wrong? Was it supposed to be stained? He couldn’t remember.

“If you please, Mr. Slater.”

Oh, that was right, he was meant to lie down. So he did.

His usher faded away back through the crates. Another man leaned over him, his eyes obscured by goggles. “Mr. Slater, I’m going to explain what I’m going to do, is that alright?” The man smiled, but Harper couldn’t tell if it was real, it didn’t reach his eyes.

Goggleface spoke, “We’re just going to place this against the base of your skull.” He pulled a mechanical arm from overhead, and Harper felt pressure behind his ear. “You’ll feel a sharp pinch as the compressor punches the data port in. For ninety seconds you will technically be dead, but only ninety seconds. Then we will revive you and I will ask you a series of questions to ensure that the filaments have made the proper connections and not caused any permanent damage, okay?”

Harper blinked. He thought he should say something and began to open his mouth, but Goggleface went on.

“I know things are a little murky right now. It’s necessary for us to suppress your high brain functions so as not to impede the infiltration of the nanofilaments. This will be the worst ninety seconds of your life, but only ninety seconds for a brighter future, hm?”

All of a sudden, Harper knew he didn’t want to be here. This was a very, very bad idea. To let this man in this place inject something into his brain. This was possibly the worst idea he’d ever had.

But—but then, he’d thought this through, hadn’t he? He’d thought of all the angles, he must have, though he couldn’t remember them right now. And if he had made the decision to do this, then it must have been the right decision. When he could think clearly, when things didn’t feel so remote and so slow, that him had known this was the right choice. So it must be the right choice. Harper stayed.

“Let us begin.”

Then there was nothing.

Then there was pain and nausea and the feeling that something was pressing inside his head, a cancer, an abscess, touching places that had never been touched, that should not be touched, like worms forcing their way through his brain.

He couldn’t move his arms or legs. He felt heavy, like the grav field had been cranked up. Something was touching his temple, sparking. He rolled his head away from it, tucking it into his shoulder. But the worms wouldn’t stop.

“Mr. Slater? Are you back with us Mr. Slater?”

Who was Mr. Slater? His hair was sticky, and liquid tickled down his neck and soaked into the collar of his shirt.

“Can you look at my finger please, Mr. Slater? Now follow it. Good. Visual cortex appears to be intact. Now if you please, who is the leader of the Drago-Kazov Pride?”

Harper wanted to cry. What was happening? He looked into the mask hovering above. “Please,” he whispered. Please what? He couldn’t think of the rest. He just wanted to be clean, for someone to wash the blood out of his hair.

The mask retreated. “Ah,” he said. “One of those. Well, I’ll give you few minutes and we’ll try again.” He sounded disappointed.

The sound of a door opening behind Harper’s head, then footsteps, fast. Another mask above him, this one twisted like a devil mask from an Ancient Earth festival. It spoke. “Who sent you?”

“I don’t know.”

The voice from the first mask: “Is something wrong?”

“This one’s an FTA spy. Sent to shut us down for illegal operations.”

“Oh?” He did not sound upset. Not like the second voice.

“Ferguson said he had it on good authority. This runt’s FTA.”

“Well if he is, he’s not a very good one.” There was a smile in his voice. “The problem’s solved itself, as it were.”

Both masks reappeared above him. Harper didn’t understand what was happening. “Please,” he said again. If they would only wash his hair, he was sure things would begin to make sense.

The devil mask changed, cracked, reversed itself. It laughed. “Justice served. Good thing he wasn’t sponsored, or some ship’s captain would be wanting his creds back.”

“Indeed.”

Then there was nothing again.

~*~

The worms had stopped when he woke again, but the pressure was still there, and Harper’s first thought was that it would always be. He was in an alley, surrounded by garbage.

He pushed himself to his feet, then had to kneel again and retch up the breakfast he hadn’t had.

Sweat ran through his hair and down his neck, except for a patch on his right side, where he couldn’t feel anything. He brought his hand up and gingerly touched it—warm metal. His data port. His ticket out of here. When he pressed it the world shifted. He jerked his hand away.

Harper pushed his way out of the alley, leaning against the wall. When he got to the mouth, he could see the glow of the tattoo parlor shining in the perpetual twilight of the drift. It had seemed bad-ass and impressive when he went in: The Abbatoir. He shuddered. “Ninety seconds for a brighter future,” he muttered, and pushed all thoughts of that place away.

First, find a place to sleep. Second, steal new clothes without bloodstains or the smell of garbage. Third, the spaceport. Fourth? Well, fourth, everything.

~*~

The woman had pink hair and a ship that looked like it was held together with rust and wishes. Perfect. Harper bounced up to her. “You looking for a mechanic?”

She barely glanced at him before her lip pulled up in a sneer. “Don’t waste my time, kid.”

Harper blocked her path. “Hey, it’s not the size of the pack, it’s the power in the charge. The magic in the fingers. The juice in the goose.”

She made to dodge around him, then stopped. She grabbed his chin before he could jerk away and tilted his head to the side. “Not that I’m not flattered, lady, but take a guy to dinner first. Or at least lunch.”

“You know how to use that?” She jerked her head it his port. His beautiful, perfect, wonderful dataport.

“Does a Vedran know how to tango? Does an uber know how to conquer?”

She stepped back and gave him a full head-to-toe. Sure, he’d had to steal the shirt from a drunk Nightsider, but at least it fit. Almost.

She squinted her eyes. “Alright, I’ll give you one go with the Maru. And if the VR doesn’t spank you, we can talk terms.”

“You won’t regret it. You’ll never be Ma _ru_ -ned with the Maru with ol’ Seamus Zelazny Harper on board.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “Beka Valentine.” She extended her hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Hearts and chocolates. You have not made a mistake.”

“I’m pretty sure I have.” She turned back to her ship. “But what’s a Valentine without a few bad decisions. Welcome aboard.”

Harper walked onto his golden ticket, and followed her to the bridge. She gestured to the VR input jack. Harper picked it up and held it for a moment. Well, there was a first time for everything. He plugged in.


End file.
